The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 4 eBook

There! There end my volumes, to my great satisfaction!
If we are to have any bonfires or illuminations,
you will be here to light them Yourselves. Adieu
to Yorkshire!

(883) He means bribed by the then prime minister.

(884) Lord Amherst, the then commander-in-chief, had
appointed a cousin of Miss Berry’s to an ensigncy,
on his recommendation.

(885) The persons addressed were to arrive in London.

(886) The present Marquis of Hertford.

(887) A person of distinguished abilities, She possessed
an extraordinary force of mind, clearness of understanding,
and remarkable powers of thought and combination,
She retained them unimpaired to the great age of eighty-five,
by exercising them daily, both in the practice of
mathematics and in reading the two dead languages;
of which, late in life, she had made herself mistress.
To those acquirements must be added warm. and lively
feelings, joined to a perfect knowledge of the world
and of the society of which she had always been a
distinguished member. Mr. Walpole, from misinformation
of her conduct towards a friend of his in earlier
life, had never done justice to her character—­a
mistake, in which she did not participate, relative
to him.-M.B.

I certainly sympathize with you on the reversed and
gloomy prospect of affairs, too extensive to detail
in a letter; nor indeed do I know any thing more than
I collect from newspapers and public reports; and
those are so overcharged with falsehoods on all sides,
that, if one waits for truth to emerge, one finds
new subjects to draw one’s attention before firm
belief can settle its trust on any. That the
mass and result are bad, is certain; and though I
have great alacrity in searching for comforts and
grounds of new hopes, I am puzzled as much in seeking
resources, as in giving present credit. Reasonine
is out of the question: all calculation is baffled:
nothing happens that Sense Or experience said was
probable. I wait to see what will happen, without
a guess at what is to be expected. A storm, when
the Parliament meets, will no doubt be attempted.
How the ministers are prepared to combat it, I don’t
know, but I hope sufficiently, if it spreads no farther:
at least I think they have no cause to fear the new
leader who is to make the attack.

I have neither seen Mr. Wilson’s book(888) nor
his answerers. So far from reading political
pamphlets, I hunt for any books, except modern novels,
that will not bring France to my mind, or that at
least will put it out for a time. But every fresh
person one sees, revives the conversation: and
excepting a long succession of fogs, nobody talks
of any thing else; nor of private news do I know a
tittle. Adieu!

(888) It was entitled “A Letter, Commercial
and Political, addressed to the Right Hon. William
Pitt-, by Jasper Wilson, jun. Esq.”
The real author was Dr. Currie, the friend of Mr.
Wilberforce; who commends it, “as exhibiting
originality of thought and force of expression, and
solving, finely the phenomena of revolutions.”
See Life, vol. ii. p. 13.-E.